Jump to content

Need a change in the Law?


observer

Recommended Posts

Do we really need a change in the law - to allow "assisted suicide" or should we just allow juries to decide on a case by case basis? :? Seems Ray Gosling has thrown the brown stuff at the fan with his so-called addmission - but presuming he says absolutley nothing to the police and assuming they do find the individual allegedley involved, and the hospital involved, and the death certificate - the death certificate will indicate the official cause of death; then they have to find a body in order to verify cause of death, which could be a tad difficult if the deceased was cremated ! :? Seems if Doctors take away pain by higher and higher doses of morphin, there's no need for this debate? :cry:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Not quite Baz: if they do eventually locate a death certificate for this alleged person; cause of death will be shown on it. IF cause of death, doesn't match with the alleged murder mode, they,ve got a problem. :shock: Their only recourse then, would be to exhume the body for an autopsy, which would be difficult if he was cremated 20 years ago! :?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Quite a bit of what this man said didn't really sound feasible.

Are we really to believe that his friend was truly lying in a hospital in agonising pain for hours and the medical staff did nothing to alleviate his suffering?

Morphine has been used for years as a painless passage out of this world, not quite in large enough doses to be classed as legal euthanasia but enough to ensure there is no consiousness of pain until the patient dies of 'natural causes'. If he was suffering pain the medics would have dealt with it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Anyone who means it, does it. Anyone threatening and hanging about on the edge or ringing the Samaritans wants to be stopped.

 

However, veering dangerously close to the original topic, I think that dragging a recently bereaved person through the court process for months is a cruel and horrible thing to do. The law needs clarifying, so people know exactly what they may and may not do and exactly what the penalty is. At the moment, it's pretty well pot luck and that's not fair on anyone.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

But his friend died in hospital, as expected, so there probably wasn't even a flicker about signing the death certificate. Where someone dies at home and hasn't seen the doctor recently enough, there has to be a PM and any overdose or other action is going to show up then. That leaves the Police to decide whether to proceed or not and some poor soul who has helped gets months of waiting to see what happens, whilst other poor souls who didn't help have everyone poking about in their business to make sure. Either way, the current laws just make a bad situation worse.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The law needs clarifying, so people know exactly what they may and may not do and exactly what the penalty is. At the moment, it's pretty well pot luck and that's not fair on anyone.

 

In the Gosling case the law is clear, killing someone by suffocation or any other means is unlawful killing/manslaughter/murder whatever.

He should have left it to the medics and the morphine, which would have been an easier passage out than being suffocated.

 

I wonder whether he could have actually done what he has 'confessed' to?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Same reason he makes his living getting his face on the telly, I'd have said.....

 

Yes, what he did was murder, not assisted suicide. Manslaughter if you argue he was under enormous stress and it was a mercy killing. Where we need a change to the law is the situation where a husband asks his wife to administer an injection or help him take pills because he intends to commit suicide and just can't quite manage the physical task alone. In those cases, the current law leaves the wife completely ignorant of the penalty. She might get a conditional discharge or ten years in prison. How can she make a decision - and how can he ask her to take that big a risk? Everyone's miserable and we foot the bill for a trial that does no good in the end either.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Quite a bit of what this man said didn't really sound feasible.

Are we really to believe that his friend was truly lying in a hospital in agonising pain for hours and the medical staff did nothing to alleviate his suffering?

Morphine has been used for years as a painless passage out of this world, not quite in large enough doses to be classed as legal euthanasia but enough to ensure there is no consiousness of pain until the patient dies of 'natural causes'. If he was suffering pain the medics would have dealt with it.

 

My own mother went 11 days in Warrington Hospital without sleep due to the super strength chemo they used on her that burned her back so bad she couldnt lie down. She wet herself a number of times waiting for the staff to come and help her to go to the loo due to the pain.

 

When I found out I spoke to the nurses on duty and demanded she be given something to help her to sleep, they put an automatic morphine injector box thing onto her stomach and said that would do the trick....had I known she would go into a sleep that she would never wake up from I wouldnt have left the hospital that night.

 

I wasnt told this was the 'final solution'. The point is, how can people who dont matter decide the fate of your nearest and dearest without your consent yet you cant decide the fate of your loved ones without the permission of strangers...who is to say who is right ? Faith in our legal and medical system? You're having a laugh!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's something not talked about publicly, but the medics have always applied an expediency approach to the "final solution". I recall visiting the old "Geriatric" Ward many moons ago, and noticed many of the bed notes had "NFR"written across them, on enquiring, I was told it meant " Not For Resucitation" - so they evidently needed the bed space even then! :shock: Ultimately - pain relief IS the final solution. :shock:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Obs,

 

my mum was down as NFR two years ago after she had her stroke. She's still going and the practice still continues. The families have no rights of intervention on the NFR decision taken by the doctors so why should they have any say if a patient wants to die?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That was my point Baz, the medics are writing (old) folk off every day of the week on the basis of convenience, so all this hype on the sanctity of life is rather hypocritical and confusing, when on the other side of the coin, you can get rescue services risking life and limb to save some Richard Head who's got themselves into trouble. :?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Obs,

 

......The families have no rights of intervention on the NFR decision taken by the doctors so why should they have any say if a patient wants to die?

 

I don't think it's quite as clear cut as that Baz. The decision not to resucitate should ideally be taken by Doctors after consultation with the family. If the decision is taken and the family then just informed, they should at least be given the medical reasons....such as overly disabilitating brain damage, unnecessary further suffering etc.

I know of families who have disagreed with Doctors decisions and forced them to continue treatment.

 

Whilst in principal I agree with the idea of euthanasia to prevent unnecessary suffering I think that to legalise it might be treading far too dangerous ground.

I think Obs is right in saying that the medics are writing old folk off every day of the week on the basis of convenience.

Increasingly these days the 'sanctity of life' is weighed against the cost effectiveness of treatment.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...